


you need to be cold to be queen

by badboy_fangirl



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 03:05:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1763667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Felicity who first learns about Oliver's son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you need to be cold to be queen

**Author's Note:**

> [](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/americanoutlaw/media/Arrow/Olicityhands_zpsa576c89d.gif.html)   
> 
> 
>  
> 
> This is from a prompt at comment-a-thon in fluffyfrolicker's LJ: _any, you need to be cold to be queen_. I saw it, and it made this pop into my head.

It's Felicity who first learns about Oliver's son.

She's researching a guy Oliver believes is shady (he is) regarding business practices (that deprive people of their retirement money) (sometimes Felicity wishes people would be more clever), but she finds a transaction that leads to another transaction that leads to something about Moira Queen and before she knows it, she's up to her elbows in posthumous secrets.

(Most of the time, she just wishes she didn't know how to do the things she knows how to do.)

She Google's the woman's name, finds out she went to university in Starling City, but left suddenly a little over seven years earlier. A link leads her to Facebook, and photographs that aren't friends-only protected. She clicks on one that brings up the face of a little boy with Oliver's eyes, so blue and too serious.

(He looks just like him, he really does. It's like Mia Farrow's son, the one who looked just like Frank Sinatra? The one they said was Woody Allen's, but who ever believed that? Yeah, it's just like that.)

She thought she knew what rage was when Moira tried to emotionally blackmail her to not tell Oliver about Thea's true parentage. And how this surprises her, well, _surprises her_ , but at the same time it makes total sense.

He'd been young and dumb and his mother had had the ability to make it go away. Well, not make it go away so much as make it go to Central City, two million dollars richer.

( _Two. Million. Dollars._ Felicity has no idea what seven years ago-Oliver would think of that, but she imagines she knows what present day-Oliver would think. Maybe. Possibly?)

She doesn't tell him right away. In fact, at first, she plans to never tell him at all because it's bad enough how everything went, how his mother died, and how he carries so much guilt over it. But it eats at her, and she starts having nightmares where he confronts her about it and then he runs her through with a sword.

They're just dreams, but she's Felicity Smoak, not Moira Queen. She's not able to make decisions that change the course of so many lives without blinking an eye or a backward glance. She can't let him believe something so false, so _wrong_. 

She can't even convince herself that her dislike of Moira extends to morality, because the truth is, she would go to her grave to protect Oliver, too. She would do anything to keep his shoulders free of that extra weight, whatever guilt will come with suddenly having a six year old son that he never knew existed.

It's just that protecting him and partial disclosure aren't options, not when so many lies created most of what haunts him now.

Felicity isn't co-dependent; she doesn't think that her every action impacts Oliver and she knows that his actions have nothing to do with her. She was an add-on; someone that came late to the party, but had the right BYOB so she got invited to stay.

But she was invited to stay, and she's continually been invited to stay after several opportunities where he could have banished her. And with Oliver and his moods, it could have happened, but instead he manages to bear with her when she yells at him. He humbles himself and values what she says and looks at her like he couldn't do it without her. 

So she tells him, gently, one night after Digg's gone home and they're alone. His eyes widen, and then squeeze shut, and then his hands reach out to keep his balance as he grabs a chair to put under his trembling legs. She watches him fall apart, grief and joy intermingling as tears and smiles trade places on his face.

When he leans towards her, his hand extended, she puts hers trustingly against his palm. His fingers painfully squeeze hers, but she endures it silently.

That's what she does for Oliver. Sometimes she's just quiet.


End file.
